On the surface, the Women's Para Single event at this year's Gold Cup in October shared a lot of similarities with the International final for the Gold Cup itself: a field of elite National Team scullers, facing off in singles for the cash prize at the end of the 750 meter sprint race.

All three para athletes in the women's final had already represented the USA on the National Team, and in fact Pearl Outlaw, Madison Eberhard, and Molly Moore—who won the Blackwell Duling Challenge in the end--were teammates in 2019 at the Linz Worlds, while Outlaw and Moore came into this year's event having just returned from the 2022 Worlds.

The Para Women's Final at The Gold Cup: Outlaw in far lane, Moore in center, Eberhard in near lane

Yet the format of the race--exclusively for athletes in singles like all of the Gold Cup events--could have been an obstacle for the visually impaired Outlaw, a blind sculler whose three National Team appearances have all been in the Mixed Double, with a sighted partner.

The not-so-secret ingredient which made it possible for her to race alone in her single lay in the small box mounted on the stern of her shell. Inside? An invention that Bob Berry has been working on for a few years now: a rudder which Berry, following in a chase launch, operates with a remote controller, giving Outlaw just enough assistance to keep her as straight in her lane as any sighted sculler.

Berry's invention, which he calls the "Remote Coxswain," is not new: he first came up with the idea in 2017 so that a young blind sculler he was coaching could get into a single and, eventually, start doing junior races without a sighted partner in the boat.

This year's Gold Cup, however, was the first time Berry's remote rudder had been used in an elite sprint race like The Gold Cup.

Outlaw and Berry, launching for the final

The rudder makes a "huge difference" when it comes to rowing, and racing, a single, says Outlaw.

"I can relax and just row at the same level as sighted people, because otherwise it'd be verbal commands, as opposed to just being able to get into the race or into the workout or the piece, and have that mental focus."

Berry first came up with the idea for a remote control rudder in 2017, when coaching Sofia Priebe, a visually impaired young woman from Ledyard CT, had become interested in rowing after her brother started in the sport. Berry started thinking about the best ways to have Priebe fully experience rowing despite her visual impairment.

Berry, who recalls saying to Priebe "There's no reason why you can't row; you don't need to see," had started working with her by giving her verbal directions on how to steer and by putting her in boats with sighted partners--not unlike how Outlaw has competed at Worlds, in the PR3 Mix Double.

"We had her in a fixed seat gig to start with, and then she was rowing with her brother in a double," Berry said. But when she wanted to do more on her own in the single, Berry had an idea.

"A remote controlled airplane has a rudder," he remembers thinking, "so why not put a rudder on a boat?

Berry, on right, heading out to follow Outlaw's final with his remote control

"I had a nice, stable single that I picked up, and I just drilled through it and put a rudder tube in. Then I took a crashed remote controlled car apart--figuring I'm not buying anything, it might not even work--but than I thought, this is perfect."

At the time, the story of his innovation, and Priebe's success in racing with it against other juniors at the Coastweeks Regatta in 2017, attracted some pretty good press, including a feature on NPR's 'Only A Game' and an article on WorldRowing.com by Goran R. Buckhorn, who first discovered Berry's story and wrote about it on his 'Hear the Boat Sing' blog.

At first, Priebe raced with Berry operating the remote control from a launch, just as he did for Outlaw at the Gold Cup, but when Priebe was invited to race at Boston's Head of the Quinobequin, where Berry could not follow her with a launch, he did a bit more tinkering.

"I took the actual transmitter part, took the circuit board out, and I was able to fit it inside my oar handle. Then I wired it so that the dial was at my thumb. The battery pack fit into the oar shaft--I had to get a long elongated battery for that part.

"Then Harvard gave me a double with one of their top guys and we stayed ahead of her and I just sculled with him and controlled her steering through my oar handle."

Sofia Priebe at the 2018 Head of the Q, just a few lengths astern of Berry's double

In the years since, Berry has kept working to fine-tune the technology, testing it out with blind scullers in Sarasota, where he works as the Maintenance Manager for Nathan Benderson Park, and even rigging it up on an eight, so that a coxswain could 'fly by wire'--to borrow a phrase from aviation--and steer the shell with a controller in one hand rather than with a cable attached to the rudder.

You can see the rudder, and the controller, in this Instagram post from one of his sessions at Benderson with a double:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bob Berry (@remotecoxswain)

It was in Sarasota where Berry first worked with Outlaw, getting her out in a Maas training single that was equipped with the device during one of her training trips to Benderson.

Then, in the week leading up to the Gold Cup, Outlaw was able to stay in Boston after the Head of the Charles to work with Berry and his invention at Cambridge Boat Club, training in the single just like her sighted opponents.

"That was the first time I've done training pieces in the single," said Outlaw. "Last Wednesday, we did minute-on minute-off with some starts and I could just row.

"You barely feel it," she said, "even compared to foot steering. It really doesn't impact the boat. I don't even feel it when I when I'm rowing.

"It's made a huge difference in how I see my training going forward in the next few years, where I'm getting my own single and we'll have that in there."

Berry's 'Remote Coxswain' means Outlaw will no longer be restricted to training only in team boats like the double as she plans her training for Paris 2024, where her PR3 Mixed Double event will make its Paralympic debut.

"It's good to get that time in the single," she said. "Everyone says how valuable is to get time in the single, but before this, it was really hard. I'll still have to have someone out in the launch or in the single leading me, but it'll just make it so that I can really focus in, with that little extra help. It's one less thing I have to think about."

Berry and Outlaw at the Gold Cup ceremony after racing

Prior to Berry's experiments with remote control, the assistive technology for blind single scullers was limited to devices which could warn them if they had left a pre-set compass heading.

"The only other kind of steering mechanism is one where you can set a line and it'll beep if you're off," said Outlaw.

"It goes off a compass course: you get your heading, and press a button," Berry explained. "But what happens, like today with that head wind, is that she might be on that heading, but she's in the next lane because of the wind."

Berry's invention, by enabling the sighted assistant to actually steer the shell, is a massive improvement over that technology--and Outlaw could tell the difference out on the race course.

"This is much closer to what a sighted person would use as far as toe steering, or pressure steering," said Outlaw, "so as far as a level playing field I feel like this is the best, closest thing."

After the racing Marilyn Koblan, Founder & President of the Para Rowing Foundation, talked to row2k about how the Gold Cup Foundation created the opportunity for Outlaw to use this technology in their event.

"The Gold Cup decided that it's more important that we have everybody have an equal chance of winning this money and we can accommodate rowers if we meet everybody's functional needs.

Outlaw and Moore racing side-by-side, the Remote Coxswain is visible on Outlaw's stern

"That's what made it possible for Pearl to be able to participate. Accommodating everyone, so they have the same opportunity as everybody else, is huge," said Koblan.

Outlaw was quick to agree about the Gold Cup organizers.

"They've been really great, really accommodating, and excited to have me here."

She was also more than ready, at the end of a day of racing, to start thinking ahead to where Berry's remote rudder might take her next:

"My goal, and what I think would be really fun, even if it starts just as exhibitions, would be rowing in different races," said Outlaw. "Whatever races will have me--I would love to just do that. Maybe next year, the Club Single or Champ Single at the Charles, even as exhibition, would be really, really fun."

After the racing: Christopher Blackwell, winner Molly Moore, Fred Duling, Pearl Outlaw, and Madison Eberhard